Deborah Simmons

SIMMONS: Talented Mills lives on in work

HBO is offering lovers of jazz and history a glimpse at one of America's oldest black neighborhoods on Sunday night when its series "Treme" debuts.

April 9, 2010

D.C. teacher contract includes merit pay

After more than two years of talks, officials with D.C. Public Schools and the Washington Teachers Union announced Wednesday a tentative contract deal that includes a merit-pay component - an issue long pushed by conservatives and supported by the Obama administration, but considered a no-no by teachers unions.

April 8, 2010

SIMMONS: Can’t be a felon, he’s too young

Sometimes young people are predators; sometimes they are prey. In either case, the time should fit the crime.

April 7, 2010

SIMMONS: Left exploits Girl Scouts

Parentdish.com is conducting an interesting poll that asks a simple question: Should the Girl Scouts be involved with Planned Parenthood in distributing sex guides?

March 26, 2010

Lower enrollment spells closure for city schools

Closing and consolidating schools, and laying off teachers, because of shrinking enrollments are nothing new for urban districts from Washington, D.C., to San Antonio.

March 24, 2010

SIMMONS: New generation of HIV threats

Meet Rick Webster, Tammy Sharp and Kevin Sellars, and allow a reintroduction of Nadja Benaissa - the Norah Jones-inspired songstress. Each represents a portentous new challenge in the battle against HIV/AIDS. But are you paying attention?

March 19, 2010

SIMMONS: Texas won’t lasso schools

All eyes and ears should be trained this spring on Texas, where the clash of culture ideals is playing itself out. The stakes in this pitched battle are high because many school districts follow Texas' lead when it comes to curriculum and because timing is crucial.

March 12, 2010

Spring break’s studious side

Spring break -- it's not just for partying anymore.

March 8, 2010

SIMMONS: Government’s not the ‘village’

Each year, an estimated 1.3 million youths drop out of high school, according to the advocacy group America's Promise Alliance. The White House puts the number at 1.2 million. Whatever the exact number, many dropouts end up in jail and prison, some languish for years like lost souls, and others struggle to become productive citizens. Now is the time for solutions.

March 5, 2010

SIMMONS: Disputation on domestic abuse

Unless the parties involved held celebrity status, domestic abuse used to be one of those secrets, like abortions and unwed pregnancies, that families tried to keep hush-hush. To be sure, there were cracker-barrel discussions and busybodies spreading hometown dirt. If progressives and Malthusians have their way, shotgun weddings will be classified as domestic violence, too.

February 26, 2010

SIMMONS: Schools’ latest busing issue

There's yet another nanny-state tie-in that federal lawmakers will consider regarding the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. Let's call it the "vexatious issue of school transportation."

February 19, 2010

SIMMONS: Leave fitness to families

They all weighed in this week. President Obama. First lady Michelle Obama. Private industry. They are training their sights on childhood obesity with a coordinated battle of the bulge. The question is: What will parents do?

February 10, 2010

SIMMONS: Red ribbons meet red tape

This is a life-and-death fact: Today's young people who are 29 or younger have never lived in a world without HIV/AIDS. Do we want another generation to face the same circumstances?

February 5, 2010

SIMMONS: Charters reflect founders’ ideas

It's hard to imagine what level of education schooled the prodigious group of men who collectively became known as America's Founding Fathers. Picture Benjamin Franklin, a school dropout at age 10, becoming a voracious reader; he did. Or another Massachusetts native, Horace Mann, the "founding father of common schools," riding around his home state on horseback advocating school reform; he did.

January 29, 2010

SIMMONS: Sagging pants not cool, fool

Hope and change. There's a lot of the former making the rounds and too little of the latter. But a glimmer of what can be is in the forecast.Did America devolve from radical feminism to misogynistic lyrics and videos to misandry?

January 22, 2010

SIMMONS: Reid must go, and here’s why

It has become a media tradition to talk about race relations and the content of people's character on and around the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birth. Today is the day.

January 15, 2010

Haiti hits celebrities’ hearts

Wyclef Jean is hardly a household name here in America, but when he reportedly asked for help from a man whose name is known worldwide, that man, Tiger Woods, said count me in.

January 15, 2010

Medical marijuana in D.C.

Medical marijuana is legal in 13 states. Will the nation's capital follow suit? The short answer is yes, but what remains unanswered is how and when.

January 12, 2010

SIMMONS: Arenas rightly under the gun

Are youths being sent in the right direction when it comes to role models? Will gun rights supporters blow an opportunity or take a page from the animal rights movement's book on Michael

January 8, 2010

CITIZEN JOURNALISM: A web of real-world threats

Are the real world and the cyberworld on a cultural collision course? There was a time smooching at the drive-in and girlie magazines were parents' worst nightmares. Times have changed. These days, sex education has replaced gym class and health education. Home economics? Forget about it.

December 28, 2009